Fabulous Barbie Weekend

This weekend the Barbie Runway Fashion Show took place featuring 50 designers modeling outfits created especially for the show. There were several full size Barbie outfits. I'm sure you will recognize them. You can view the whole show here! Here is one of my favorite outfits. I'm sorry, but I don't know the designer of this one. See more pictures here.

ASM Magazine has pictures from Mattel's Toy Fair display for your viewing pleasure. They feature the playline dolls first, then there are photographs of classic Barbies. The Collector Line follows on the last page. Finally, there are some beautiful photos on Flickr.

Have a wonderful Barbie Week!

Organizing Dolls is a Never Ending Task

Again this weekend I spent most of my time clearing out boxes and organizing my collection. This includes de-boxing, repackaging for storage, storing in baggies, etc. I still have to go through my holiday dolls. I keep meaning to go through the Valentine, Easter and Christmas playline dolls I have and thinking hard about whether they should stay or go. I just don't think there is a market on ebay for most of these dolls. Every so often I watch the prices but even for the Kelly themed holiday dolls, the prices have gone way down. At some point, I'll have a big de-boxing party and strip them of their clothes and put them all in a nude lot. Of course, the problem is that I always love to take photographs of each doll before I sell it just to have a record. I set up a pile of dolls to de-box, I do one, take a lot of pictures, put the clothes in a baggie and put the doll itself in a sale box. It works out ok for the first two or three. Then I get side-tracked by the phone, reading e-mail or one of my children. It just never ends and all the dolls I intended to get to in a day just go back in a bigger box, in the closet until the next weekend. I guess I should be grateful I have something to do. I can honestly say I am never bored and wish I had time for all my hobbies like reading, watching movies, etc.


While preparing for some dolls to go to new homes, I took some time to photograph some of my newer items over the past few weeks as well. I was lucky enough to find a nude Indigo Obsession doll a few months ago. She is re-bodied with Milan Best Model's body. I didn't feel I had quite the right outfit until I saw this new Randall Craig outfit Retro Modernism. I think Miss Indigo looks quite happy to be back in blue.

Opening A New Cafe Is Hard Work

Work continues for the Grand Opening of the Doll Cafe. To Think that less than two weeks ago I had no idea that I would be opening a new site or moving on from my previous web effort. On that note, I think things are progressing very smoothly. The forum is about 90% complete. The layout and color scheme is finally in place. Editing some of the posts and moving them around continues. There is just one modification that needs some edits. I guess I'm a bit of a perfectionist!

I started organizing, re-bodying, and redressing a lot of my dolls around the President's Day Holiday (February 18th). I finally de-boxed Blair from the 12 Dancing Princesses. Stephanie received one as a gift for her Birthday but she already had one so she gave her to me, and she sat in her box for ages. I re-bodied her with the body from the Queen of Hearts since the are both very fair. The little hearts painted on her fingernails are just adorable. Her outfit is from Randall Craig. Her elegant sister is Chinese New Year Barbie available in Asian markets. She is so beautiful but her shorter body really took away from her beauty. She received a new body courtesy of Top Model Summer. Miss Chinese New Year is wearing a Mattel carded fashion from 2005.

Still Cleaning Up and One More New Girl

I've been working very hard cleaning up the galleries for the grand opening. Looking through the various galleries and deleting many pictures also brought back some memories. The Mattel playline has really changed in recent years. It seems like the playline is really trying to separate itself from the collector line with the body changes and head mold and head size constantly changing. But then again, Mattel adds Model Muse dolls to playline with the Top Model collection. It's hard to know what direction Mattel will go in next.

On that note, there is always Ebay and I could always go back and buy dolls I missed out on! Speaking of new dolls, today I ordered the AA Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. I'm really eager to get her. She's the last one I need from the set. I haven't de-boxed the Blonde or the Hispanic doll but I'm sure as soon as I receive the last one I'll have a little de-boxing party . . .

Here is another doll I worked on last weekend. With the Barbie Collector $12.99 sale I picked up two extra AA Birthstones. One of them was Opal. I thought she would perfectly match the Birthstone Opal from the last collection. I'm quite fond of this doll because she was the only one with this skin-tone in the entire collection. In addition, very few Hispanic or African American dolls are made with the Mackie mold and this is one of them. In addition, my birthstone is Opal. I'm quite pleased with the way she turned out.